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For survival purposes, once we have ‘learned’ that a certain situation is dangerous by panicking, the mind ‘remembers’ this fact to ensure that the next time it sees a similar situation, it can give you the necessary anxiety or panic to enable you to run or fight, just like the woman in the story.

This is not the normal type of ‘remembering’ like remembering a name or telephone number, it is the sort that makes you feel good when you hear a particular piece of music, or feel happy when you look at holiday photos, or maybe feel a bit like a kid again when you walk into school as an adult.

‘Sloppy’ Unconscious pattern matching
We call this type of remembering ‘unconscious pattern matching’ because it is the ‘back part’ of your mind, the unconscious mind, that causes you to react in a certain way when it spots a particular situation or other ‘trigger’.

So if you have a panic attack in a car, you might feel anxious next time you are on a bus or train, because the situation is roughly similar. As far as survival goes, it is much better for us to ‘err on the side of caution’.

When a cliff becomes a gorge
The woman in the story above came to a cliff that roughly matched her terrifying experience in the gorge. She had ‘learned’ unconsciously that ‘high rock walls=danger’.

Despite the fact that she knew consciously that this was a different situation, her unconscious mind, looking out for her survival, ‘erred on the side of caution’ and gave her the necessary resources to get out of there fast.

What does this tell us about treatments for anxiety and panic attacks?
It tells us:

• that we have to take into account the unconscious aspects when treating these problems.
• that they are natural responses that can become habitual ones.
• that this can look like a problem with body chemistry, but that this not true in the vast majority of cases.
• that new skills, approaches and understandings can show us how to be calm again in situations that previously caused anxiety and panic.